Slug is a collection of poetry, short-stories and Hollie McNish's ramblings about life and discussions about the inspiration behind her poems. This book will make you laugh, will make you cry, will make you mad and will feel like a warm hug (particularly for women because so many issues Hollie writes about are entirely relatable.

Hollie McNish has an incredible talent and her poems and words are relatable, socially astute and also incredibly no-nonsense and funny.

This book is pretty long for poetry, but the way it is broken up into various themes: ENDINGS, GROWING UP, PARENTING, MIRRORS, MASTURBATION, BLOOD, & STRANGERS. Means you can easily dip in and out of different sections and McNish even suggests how you can read the book or not.

Slug is one of those books I wish I'd had ten years ago as an insecure teenager, hearing McNish talk about how we shame female masturbation, how we shame periods, how we shame our body. Her discussions about parenthood, about strangers, about grief. She talks about social and racial inequalities, gender disparities and so much more. There is just so much honesty and beauty to the way she writes.

Poetry is a genre I'm only just coming to love and discover and I think McNish's background discussions to her poems only made me appreciate them more. I felt none of the confusion of "Am I smart enough to interpret this poem" that has often put me off reading poetry and just entirely fell in love.

I am so thankful to the publishers for sending me a copy as this was one of my anticipated releases for May and it did not disappoint in the slightest.